Perhaps I’ve become a conspiracy theorist. I sometimes suspect that the world is secretly being ruled by Chicken Little.

That’s because all I hear is, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

When it gets right down to it, that’s what all these terms mean. Fiscal cliff. Mayan Apocalypse. Zombie Apocalypse. Warmageddon. Y2K (remember that?). Great Recession.

By the way, how can a recession be great? Wouldn’t it have to be a depression? A great recession is the equivalent of fantastic mediocrity.

I’ve been reading a book about World War II (Jeff Shaara’s “The Rising Tide”). During the North African Campaign of 1942-43, the Allies were baffled by the apathy of the Algerian, Tunisian and Ethiopian people. While the French were trying to straddle a fence between the two sides, the natives just looked out for number one. No cheering. No fanfare. They just stole everything that wasn’t firmly anchored. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower came to realize that these people had been invaded by every army since the ancient Romans, and they had developed a centuries-old habit of being beyond caring. They had learned to trust no one but themselves. They got by on getting by.

They do. Every time the television comes on, Chicken Little appears in the form of Rush Limbaugh, Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann or some new naysayer I haven’t noticed yet.

“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

But, somehow, it doesn’t. Cooler heads prevail. Folks settle down.

Meanwhile, our sensitivities – and sensibilities – get number and number.

It’s just as prevalent in the workplace. A crisis ensues, and often the response is the same: “Ah, let’s just sit back and see what happens. It might just blow over.”

Then “it” doesn’t blow over, and when the crisis reaches epic proportions, people get together and do something about it, which is invariably a lot more costly and troublesome than it would’ve been to deal with the problem before it got out of hand.

Let’s not forget the individual. How many of us ignore warning signs, whether in regard to our health, our houses, our businesses and our families?